


Bury a friend (try to wake up)

by linascribbles



Series: Verse [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Song: bury a friend by Billie Eilish, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Time Skips, except for the parts that were useful, kind of like a matryoshka doll timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linascribbles/pseuds/linascribbles
Summary: What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me?What are you wondering? What do you know?Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me?When we all fall asleep, where do we go?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155392
Kudos: 14





	Bury a friend (try to wake up)

**Author's Note:**

> Based of Bury A Friend by Billie Eilish, hightly recommend you listen to it before reading, though if needles give you the creeps avoid the official music video.  
> Lyrics are bolded and some have been reworked to fit the sentences.  
> Straight lines are unchronical time jumps, dotted lines are jumps to the following scene in the timeline.  
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> I'm quiquimora on Tumblr, come say hi :)

“ **Bucky?** ”

The word (name?) reverberated against its body like a crushing blow. Only its flawless design and training kept the Asset from staggering from the sheer force of it. There was a malfunction, he could feel it. _No_. The flow of movement had been broken. There was no course of action available. No specific directive to follow. There were no protocols for this scenario. The only thing that saved the Asset was that the enemy seemed to be left in a similar state of inaction.

The target was immobile. 

Its inner workings were screeching, but the Asset knew what to do when a target was immobile. There was a directive for _that_ scenario.

It took out his gun and shot that blonde head, pushing along with the trigger all the weakness and perturbations swirling inside its inner workings.

* * *

The night is cool against his skin, it slithers through his clothing and permeates him. He readjusts his position on the branch he’s perching on and a particularly cold tendril sneaks under his hoodie, making him shiver. He discards the urge to tense at the muscle vibrations, and instead relaxes, letting it travel all the way through his body, from his lower back to the roots of his hair and the tips of his toes. He finds the tingling sensation pleasant and feels a corner of his mouth twitch upwards.

It’s still strange to _feel_ , it has only been so long since he has realized he _is_. He tries to remind himself of that as often as he can. It can become overwhelming sometimes. The first time he chose to give into the barrage of feedback from his senses in a secure location, he happened to pick the peak hour of traffic and movement in New York. It had not been pleasant.

Now, he pays attention to his body, to his surroundings, letting it all wash over him, a constant reminder of his existence in the present.

The soft movement of his clothes on his skin, the wind through his hair, even the feel of his muscles flexing. Discovering the ways his face shifted had occupied him for hours in front of a dirty mirror. He’d only stopped when he got to the point where he couldn’t recognize it as something anymore. He had noticed that too, if you questioned something enough times all reference to reality got lost under an ocean of uncertainty. He had learned to trust his basic instincts.

His instincts are now yelling at him to get down and approach the man sitting on the park bench. He came alone and apparently unarmed; the shield isn’t nowhere to be seen and he isn’t carrying a weapon. The watcher fights down the alarm that causes him. He hadn’t specified that in his invitation, he hadn’t even fathomed it as a possibility, truly. Showing up without a weapon feels plain unnatural. Yet, it is obvious he hasn’t; he can tell that from the way he moves, completely unconstructed except for the tension riding his shoulders. His hand tingles with the phantom memory of that shoulder under his palm, solid, warm, _real_.

He descends from his perch and approaches the visitor. When he’s five meters out a twig snaps under his boot and that blond head swirls from his broad surveillance to his position, zeroing on his general direction.

“Bucky? Please tell me it’s you.” The voice it has a weight to it, it is almost physical, no matter the soft tone it has. It is fittingly deep now, but not before, not always. A memory surfaces, it’s not completely clear, not specific, but its tinted with something that might be amusement. Steve as a child, no, not a child, he’s older than that, early teens probably. He’s angry, maybe irritated at something, but his indignation is severely undercut with the way his voice keeps cracking and shooting up in pitch as he raises it.

He blinks the memory away as he approaches a few paces more, entering the circular haze of the street light.

“Something like that.” His own voice is heavy too, but in a vastly different way.

Steve’s blue eyes are intense as he stands up slowly. There’s again that way he looks at him, just like he did when…

* * *

“ **What do you want from me?** ” He growls in his ear. 

The man from the bridge is pressed face first against the alley wall. His arm bent behind his back at a painful angle by the metal arm, and yet he isn’t trying to break free. Even though he could, maybe not unscathed, but he has proven previously that he is not deterred by damage. Far from it. The Asset remains poised for a fight even as he has the upper hand, just in case.

“Nothing! I just want you to be alright!” His tone is tainted with pain, but he’s attempting to hide it.

 _He always talks loudly when he’s trying to hide pain, always so defensive_.

The knowledge is new, the Asset has no way of knowing where it came from; it feels different than all the other things he knows, older maybe, but also, less… clinical. Somehow more organic, born out of experience, not training. Instinctively, he tries to find the pathway it took to get to the forefront of his mind but only finds spikes of pain on the way. It's so sudden it makes him lash out. He presses even harder against the body in front of him.

“ **Why don't you run from me?** ”

“I- I told you, before, I- I'm with you till the end of the line, Buck. I'm not gonna fight you and I've never ran from anything in my life, but I’ll-” He takes as deep a breath as he can in his constricted, twisted position. When he talks again, he does so in a whisper, voice raw and heartbroken, “I’ll stop chasing if that’s what you really want.”

 _Truth,_ his instincts tell him. He takes a closer look at the man he’s pinning against the wall; his face is pushed against the brick wall, one arm trapped between his body and the wall and the other twisted under his grip. And yet, he’s not fighting back, his muscles are not locked, or ready to attack at a second of vulnerability. Steve’s hurting, and it’s by his hand. The realization makes something dark, twisted and repulsed surge inside his gut. His instincts yell at him to let him go, he’s never meant to hurt this man. He’s so startled by it that he obeys that inner voice without questioning. It’s a primal instinct, rational thought, and programing, are completely forgone in its presence.

He releases his grip on the man and quickly retreats, but he doesn’t uncoil his muscles, or drop his stance. There’s always the possibility of unpredictable behavior. Though, if recent experience is to be taken into account, it’s debatable whose is more unpredictable, Steve’s or his.

No attack comes. Steve stretches his hands slowly upwards until they reach his head and only then turns around, one degree at a time. The alley is not particularly narrow, a dirty pathway between two busy streets, and yet the second his gaze falls upon him, that’s the only thing that seems to exist. The brick wall behind him, the garbage stench, the sounds of the city and his own breath, it all falls away when faced with those inquisitive looks.

 ** _What are you wondering?_** He wants to ask. **The way he’s drinkin' him down, like he wants to drown** in the mismatched details that make him.

Their bubble of silence stretches as they regard each other. Steve’s gaze travels over Bucky’s body once, twice, and on the third time settles on his face. A small smile pushes his lips.

“It’s really good to see you, Buck”

That name again. Every time he hears it its like it echoes; another hundred voices inside his head say it along with the man in front of him. He focuses back to the first time he heard it, not too long ago, back when Steve was nothing more than the man from the bridge, back to the way Steve had looked then and afterwards. Hurt, bloody and exhausted. He recalls the way his face felt against his fist and flinches. Skin and image crackled under the violence. But the way those blue eyes only focused on his, and the abandon with which he dropped his shield and left himself at his mercy. **Like he wanted to end himself** before daring to hurt him. 

_He would have_ , a voice whispers, _he would have drowned if it wasn’t for you_. 

He’s plunged down in a barrage of memories.

* * *

“I’m not gonna fight you, you’re my friend.” The mission says as he drops the shield, the only weapon he has. It can’t understand this. _Why would he do that?_ _It goes against every known protocol._

“Your name… is James Buchannan Barnes” he says as he takes off his helmet. And there’s that blow again, like a white-hot metal poke drilling into his skull. He screams as he charges, trying to find some outlet for the pain in his head. His golden head is like a stab in the eye, those blue eyes that seem so wrong yet so deeply familiar. He punches him twice before he realizes he’s screaming.

_“You’re!_

_My!_

_Mission!”_

“Then finish it.” He’s beaten red and purple under its fist, his eyes are swollen and the blue is almost lost in the mess of blood and dirt.

He hadn’t realized he was heaving; his chest feels tight in the leather cage of his armor; smoke fills his nostrils and irritates his eyes.

“Cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.” He says, voice broken, crackled under the violence and destruction raining around them.

His breath catches in his throat. This is what a supernova must feel, or maybe the big bang. He cracks, somewhere deep in his inner workings something splinters, shatters, explodes. Light fills his vision, his hand feels bruised, his lungs constricted with the polluted air, hair and wind whip around his head and get in his eyes. He’s aware of the heat around him and the one radiating from the body underneath him and into his hand. Suddenly he _is_. 

Another image overlaps with reality, interferes with his vision, clear as day despite the smoke, the tears, the pain.

“I can get by on my own.”

It’s _Steve_ , small, skinny, frame swallowed by the only thing they had that could be called formal clothes, and he’s devastated. His shoulders are down, that proud tilt of his chin gone. Yet when a hand ( _his_ hand?) lays on his shoulder Steve smiles at him. It’s a small, fickle thing but the closest he got to it in the weeks since his ma got sick.

“Thing is, you don’t have to,” he says. Exhaustion hangs heavy in his friend’s frame and there’s nothing he wants more than to remove it, so he utters the closest thing he can get to what he really wants to say: “cause I’m with you ‘till the end of the line, pal.”

 _No!_ It snaps back to itself. _How is this possible?_ The Asset doesn’t _remember_ , doesn’t _feel_. It simply _isn’t_.

And yet, _he now is_. The man below him just made him, or maybe just put him back together. The parts of him that were scattered in his mind, hiding, terrified to show themselves cause every time they did, he suffered. Because they _made_ him suffer, over and over again, until he learned to cease existing.

And now, now he is, because _Steve is alive._ What does it mean? Why does it feel like this man’s existence changes _everything_? As if the sun wasn’t a star or gravity was optional, because those were things as fundamental to the Asset as the hole in reality where this man isn’t supposed to be.

* * *

He stares at him, blinking the memory away. The air is thick with tension even as Steve keeps his posture loose and nonchalant, trying to convey he isn’t a threat. As if a body like that could be anything but.

His mind is reeling, a confused mess of questions, observations about Steve, the situation, the best course of action to take in case of an attack. (The closed quarters of the alley could be manipulated to work in his favor as long as he isn’t pinned.) The sounds from the street whirl in his mind, making it hard to form coherent thoughts and pick one to voice.

 ** _What do you know?_** He wants to ask, but doesn’t, it’s too a broad inquiry, he needs to be precise.

“ **Why aren't you scared of me?** ” He rasps, swallowing down the knot in his throat that has formed under those assessing eyes. “I almost killed you more than once, and you still come back instead of running.”

Steve looks at him with a complicated expression. There’s confusion, and pain, longing, heartbreak, but also happiness, a high level of joy that seems to make them shine with an intensity that feels almost blinding. Steve opens his mouth to answer but is interrupted. That question was wrong, that’s not what he wants to know.

“ **Why do you care for me?** ” he asks.

“You’re my friend, I- I told you that,” Steve swallows and looks down, “before, on the-“ he cuts himself off and takes a deep breath, visually steeling himself and squaring his shoulders back to look at him directly in the eye. “I’ve always cared for you, and I always will, no matter what, Buck, please know that.”

The truth in that statement cuts through his defenses. Its terrifying, how much this man affects him. The way he moves disturbs the air and his mind. His voice is a warm comfort, it wraps itself around his head and brings forth hazy memories of laughter. He wonders what his touch would evoke on him.

He stares at him, unable to fully understand how that is possible, care is earned, through doing, through completing missions, and he hasn’t done any of that for him.

“Why? I’m an assassin, I’m the fist of HYDRA, everything you should _hate_.” There’s no scaping what he did, what he is, his voice rises as he starts to get agitated. “I’ve done unspeakable things. I've killed innocents, hell I almost killed _you_ , Stevie! I-“ His own words fall like a bucket of ice on him, his voice cracks, “ _I_ _almost killed you._ " He chokes back a sob as the realization hits him. He almost killed him, _Steve_ , the only connection he has left to his past, the last connection to his existence. “And you almost let me.”

“Buck, c’mon, don’t do this to yourself.” Steve takes a step forward and he lets him. His eyes are kind, soft and concerned; it’s such a strange sight to have it directed at him.

He curls his arms around his chest, trying to contain the panic, the desperation born of his own actions.

“That wasn’t you, Buck, all those things, you didn’t have a choice, that was HYDRA.” He takes another step closer; Bucky can see the tension in his frame, his hands curl and uncurl, clearly unsure what to do.

“I still did them.” He whispers, he can feel the tears on his cheeks. The memories from the Winter Soldier were some of the first he regained. The triggers for them were everywhere, from a bike ring to a song on the radio. He’s pretty sure he has regained most of them, and now they are all circling through his head. So much blood, so much destruction, all by his hand.

“Buck, please, c’me here.” Steve opens his arms, a clear invitation and tentatively, Bucky walks closer. It’s almost magnetic, the pull, and he doesn’t want to fight it. Strong arms circle him and slowly start to draw wide circles in his back, calming, soothing words fall from Steve lips as he presses them to the crown of his head.

Bucky curls his arms around his friend and holds on for dear life.

* * *

**“When we all fall asleep, where do we go?”**

The memory resurfaces slowly, like a bubble rising lazily to the surface. They are kids, Steve and him, probably eleven years old, sitting on the firescape in the summer. It’s hot, but the sun has lowered enough for this side to be shadowed and that makes it bearable. They could never stand under the direct sun this long; Steve would turn red and get violently sunburnt.

Bucky looks back at him, tearing his eyes from the street below. Steve has, as always, a sketchbook and a pencil in his hands, but he has closed it and Bucky can’t see what he drew.

“I don’t know, maybe nowhere.” He shrugs, “maybe everywhere.”

“That makes no sense.” Steve replies, pulling a face.

“Yes, it does,” he answers automatically.

“No, it doesn’t, jerk.”

“Shut up, punk, I ain’t the one asking weird things.”

“I just read somewhere that there are these monks who say we go to a different place when we sleep. A place where space doesn’t matter and we can be with anyone, no matter how far they are on earth. And then when we wake up and we receive some news about them or come across them somewhere and we don’t feel surprised, is because we met them in our dreams recently. They say that if you study real hard, you can learn to control it and remember later, go wherever and meet whoever you want without leaving your bed.”

“That’s really weird, Stevie.”

“I don’t know, I just thought it was neat. I’d like to think I’m meeting people from far away in my dreams. And maybe someday if we get separated, we could still keep in touch there.”

Bucky can see the appeal of that for Stevie. Six out of ten days he has some problem that keeps him inside, the worst ones have him unable to leave his bed. He can feel himself soften towards his best friend, so with a smile he says, “Yeah, you’re right, it would be neat. We could go to the Grand Canyon.”

* * *

“ **Come here** ” Steve opens his arms, and the sight is so inviting. It promises comfort, a safe place to rest his head against that broad chest. Bucky knows exactly how it feels to be comforted by Steve now, both from old memories and from new ones. Yet this time Bucky refuses. He fights the urge to fall back on their pattern. He can’t take it anymore; he needs to know. The way he is now, he can’t live on half-truths, wondering and second guessing everything. He needs _to know_.

“No.” His voice is soft, barely a whisper, but its undeniable that Steve hears him. He can see his whole expression fall, lit by the emergency lights of the stairwell, and he lets out a question before he can compose himself.

“No?”

“No, I can’t take it anymore, Steve. I can’t take…” he gestures to the space between them, “ _this_ anymore. I need you to tell me. **Say it, spit it out, what is it exactly** we’re doing? I remember all these things but nothing makes sense. What's this supposed to be? We’re dancing around each other till _what_?”

“Buck, you know I’m no good at dancing, I’ve got to left feet. I know you remember that, you told me about that time we…”

“Don’t. Change. The subject.” He growls, emphasizing each word. 

“Bucky, I-“ 

Steve’s breathing is peaking up, his cheeks are getting red too. The screech of a sneaker against the floor and the exclamation of a concerned mother filter though the door and Steve’s eyes flicker towards it.

_Why?_

_Is he scared?_

_No, Steve hasn’t been scared of a thing since he learned how to throw a punch._

What then? Embarrassed? Of him? Of… _them_? Of what always hung between them, brushed aside for one excuse or other. Of what they felt every time they looked at each other for too long. Of this pull between them, that made Bucky want to run his finger through Steve’s hair, trace his collarbone with his lips, kiss kiss kiss _kiss_ him till they were both gasping for air.

But they never did, always brushed it aside. Or so Bucky thought. But now, now Bucky doubts. What if he remembers wrong? What if the reason they never did anything was because Steve doesn’t want to? Or worse, what if they did do something at some point and HYDRA took it away forever?

“What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to be alright, Buck, no matter the cost.” He takes a step closer, arm reaching for him again, like he doesn’t even have to think about it, like it’s just an instinct to reach for him. Bucky takes a step back and he can see something like hurt flash in those blue eyes. “Are you sleeping alright? I know things are complicated right now but I’ll clear everything up, I promise. Do you have a safe place to stay? I can find you one if you want. Do you need anything from here?” He gestures to the mall outside the emergency staircase Bucky lead them to after he followed him. “You just stay out of trouble and I’ll take care of everything else, money’s not a problem…”

Bucky’s scared, terrified of the answer to his question, how much seems to hang from it; and Steve is not answering, he’s avoiding it again, and offering him _money_ in exchange. That’s an answer in its own way, isn’t it? Bucky might have changed a lot in the last seventy years, but if there’s one thing that has only increased with him regaining his agency and autonomy, is his fierce and proud desire to remain independent. He will not depend on anything or anyone, not even Steve. So he lashes out.

“ **You're payin'**?” He snarls “ **Is the amount cleanin' you out** , you’ll give as long as **I’m satisfactory**? You think I want any of that? Anything that you have to give me? Fuck you, Steve, I won’t be some charity case.” And maybe it’s not right but he’s hurting and he never promised to play clean, “I refused to be one before, I’m not gonna start now. I remember that at least.”

“Buck, please.” Steve gives a step forward, arms already rising to touch him but he can’t take it.

“Don’t, I got all the answers I needed. Goodbye, Steve.”

He turns around and walks back into the mall. In the amount of time it takes for Steve to process what happened and decide to follow him, he has melted into the crowd.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

He wakes up covered in sweat, gasping for air. He combs his hair back with a shaking hand and reaches with the other one for his journal inside the nightstand’s drawer. It jams and the way his hand is trembling doesn’t help matters, but he manages to take it out after a couple tries. Holding the pen is another struggle, he’s shaking so much he drops it a couple of times before he can put it to paper.

 **_Today, I'm thinkin' about the things that are deadly_ ** _. The way they slither in my mind, cutting thought everything just like a knife going through flesh. I know how that feels like, I’ve done it more times that I can count, or remember._

_It was a mix this time. Pieces, snapshots and flashes._

**_Stepping on the glass_ ** _of a broken window._

_A mission to take someone out cause they wouldn’t keep their mouth shut. They made **me staple their tongue**._

His hand jerks as a shiver wracks his body and when he looks down there’s a blue streak cutting through the page. He takes a deep breath and keeps writing.

_There was also the train, always the train. I’ve dream about it so much I don’t even know what’s real and what’s not. This time I dreamt about the fall, seeing Steve curled up and holding the railing, already crying as he watched me tumble down. And I remember-_

He takes a moment, this, this he isn’t sure was real but he still needs to write it, to put It on paper and leave some constancy of it. He can’t fully trust his own mind, maybe never will, but he can always go back to his journals and check things. Books don’t waver and change in a different light.

 _-being grateful, that it was me first. For all the times that Stevie was close to death, even when he got his last rites done and talked about what we should do with his possessions, I could never **bury a friend.** I remember lying in the snow and I look up at the swirls of white on a grey sky and I_ **_try to wake up_** _, I was so sure that it was all a dream. I only start screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to find me later._

He knows there’s a grave out there with his name on it. He hasn’t tried to find it. He doesn’t care for it. It’s empty. There’s nothing there for him to find, but he does hope it brought some closure to his family.

With a snort he wonders if they’d take refunds. He knows Steve never got one, a million monuments and streets named after him, but no grave. Captain America never died; he went MIA. Reality really has a twisted sense of humor. For a second, he can’t help but think how accurate that seems, Captain America never died, Steve Rogers, on the other hand…

He shakes those thoughts out of his head. Steve is alive, unrecognizable in those interviews, and functions, but still there. He has friends, the Falcon, Natalia, the rest of his superpowered group. He’s fine. Bucky could almost believe that, if it not were for that treacherous voice in his mind that brings back the way he looked beaten to a pulp and promising him the end of the line.

He pushes that line of thought aside, he can’t contemplate it now. He turns back to his journal, there was another thing to write down.

_It came with this feeling, this feeling of being eaten alive from the inside, a **Cannibal class** , as I’m **killing the son**._

_I think it was early. It feels like a memory, but an old one, and I think that feeling was that part of myself that they could never quite kill, still not completely buried, screaming at me to stop and trashing against the conditioning. I couldn’t stop myself. They were so pleased; I think it was part of a test. I passed with flying colors._

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

He knows he shouldn’t, he only came to leave a message and bolt off, but he hadn’t expected them to be back yet. Damn Stark and his tower full of secret entrances. Thought, it was thanks to one of those secret entrances he manages to sneak in, so maybe he ought to be at least minimally grateful for them.

He’s behind the door, taking the third option for an escape route he planned after the first two were blocked. He didn’t expect to eavesdrop on Sam and Steve, but he heard his name in the way and well, he _was_ trained to value information.

“I was always meant to be the first one to go, I was so close to dying so many times, before the serum. He would have gotten over me, Bucky was nothing if not adaptable, but when we were kids, to me he was… he was _everything,_ ” the sight that follows sounds suspiciously wet, “I couldn’t **bury my friend**. And then the war rolled by and he got fucking _drafted_ and didn’t tell me and then the train and Zola,” a dark laugh follows, devoid of any semblance of warmth. “I got in over my head. Bucky waded in and pulled me out, just like he always did. And the one time he needed me to return the favor, I couldn’t. I didn’t go looking for him. I couldn’t reach for him. All I had to do was hold him and now… now he’s _back_ and it’s killing me. I have him for minutes. Maybe an hour, if I’m lucky. At the most random intervals. I never know when to expect it and I can never prepare for it.”

“Steve, you know it’s not that simple.”

“I know, Sam, I know it isn’t. And I want to respect his wishes, like you told me. But when he’s in front of me, all I want is to hold him, keep him close, make sure nothing happens to him. And this time, all he was asking of me was an answer, nothing beyond that. Just an answer. And- and I panicked, I don’t know, Sam. I had him in front of me for the first time in months and I knew what I wanted to answer, to do, but… God, **I wanna end me.** ”

“Steve, don’t talk like that, we’ve gone over this. You’ve worked on this with Miah, it’s not easy. Logic and feelings don’t match, hell, wanting and doing don’t. It’s hard, and it takes time.”

“I used to be terrified of what people would think, of what they would do to us if we ever actually did anything and anyone saw. And that was back then, before the internet and camera phones and fucking twitter. It’d be impossible nowadays.”

“Steve… it doesn’t have to be a secret, man. You could come out if you think it’d be good for you. You know everyone here would support you and the rest could go fuck themselves, honestly.”

That pulls a weak chuckle out of Steve.

“Thank you, truly, for that. But we both know Captain America can’t date a man. And I can’t put Bucky through that, not now, not _ever_. He has had enough of people meddling in his life.” 

“Of course, but that’s miles away, Steve. He has a very long recovery ahead of himself, you both do. Don’t get stressed about the future. You said he looked better, like he was eating more, taking care of himself, focus on that.”

“But what if I never see him again? What if he’s off to, I don’t know, Bucharest or Tokyo and he never wants to see me again?” Steve sounds broken, barely concealed desperation tinting his tone. Bucky fails to ignore the guilty pang he feels in his chest; Steve is a lot closer to the truth than he imagines.

“It’s a possibility, of course it is, but again, you could also go on a mission tomorrow and anything could happen. No one knows what tomorrow is gonna be like, but we gotta act as if it is guaranteed. And I think that right now that means respecting his wishes. He wants to be left alone. We know he’s in the city, and that he’s taking care of himself. Those are good things; we can’t step in and take him away from the place he has started to carve for himself in this world. You can’t push him, Steve, you’ll only end up hurting both of you if you try.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just hard. Real hard.”

“I know, man. There’s nothing harder than doing nothing, especially for a soldier.”

Bucky takes a deep breath and slinks the rest of the way out of the tower. He knows that what he just did isn’t right, but he can’t bring himself to care much. It only helped to cement his decision. They’ve already met a couple times. First when he caught him following him, when he hadn’t completely found his way back to himself, but somehow did find the way back to his arms. That had happened in a couple more occasions, times where their old dynamic resurged between them without either of them realizing. And then when he told him, via a note on his pillow, just like did now, to meet him in that park to talk.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

**_Listen_ **

He pays attention, but there’s nothing, no telltale sound of bodies moving through foliage and to surround him, just the night. The odd cricket and the city night sounds, a broken bottle, a loud truck with its engine about to break down, a siren too far away to be for him. Bucky knows, if they ever take him, there won’t be any sirens involved.

Steve takes a deep inhale as he steels himself to start talking.

“Buck, it’s good to see you. I- I’m sorry about last time, in the mall I, I messed up.”

“Stop, it’s alright, maybe I shouldn’t have pushed.” He shrugs, “and that’s irrelevant right now.”

“It is?” There’s something too similar to hurt on Steve’s voice and Bucky has to swallow down the urge to deny it.

“Yeah. I have things I have to do. I told you to come cause I’m gonna be away for some time and, I didn’t want you to worry.”

“I’ll always worry about you, Buck. But thank you, for telling me. After the way we left things you didn’t have to, so…” he clears his throat, and Bucky knows that means he’s swallowing down a million things he wants to say. “Thank you. What do you have to do?”

“I can’t tell you.” He gives him what he hopes passes as an apologetic smile.

“You gonna **keep me in the dark**?” Steve says, but he doesn’t sound angry, merely resigned.

“ **What had you expected**?”

“That’s a good question, I don’t know really.” He shrugs and there’s a small smile on his lips. “So, when do you leave?” Bucky just looks at him and Steve lets out a huff. “Right, not telling. I understand. Just, be safe, please? And let me give you my number? It’s a secure line, untraceable. I just want know that you can reach me quickly, in any case. As nice as it is to find notes on my pillow, this is a bit safer, I think.”

Bucky nods, it’s a good idea. Just for emergencies, right?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

The HYDRA underling is terrified. He’s making a decent attempt at hiding it, but the Winter Soldier was trained to detect and pinpoint every single tell in human behavior and exploit it. To him, it is plain as day. He sees it in the way the corner of his lip trembles along with his voice, ever so slightly. In the small and quick diversion his eyes take towards the door, just in case.

But greed is a powerful motivator, and Bucky knows that better than anyone. So, he plays him like a fiddle, makes him believe he can **make him his art and make him a star, get him connected**. The way to a reintegrated and reconstructed HYDRA, rising from the ashes and shambles it was left after Natalia and Steve were done with it. And the Winter Soldier is his golden ticket to the top.

So, he stays and doesn’t run, doesn’t cower in fear as smarter men would.

Bucky chose him wisely, after months of digging and chasing, finding out who was left alive and who was six feet underground and good riddance. He dismantled all the chairs he knew existed first, but not out of revenge. He knows HYDRA is no longer a threat after Project Insight, and he’s tired of fighting. But he needed to know, to be sure that there were no other possible ways someone could get control of his mind. And that’s where this man comes in.

The right mark. High enough to have access to the information not on the digital files dumped on the internet, but not high enough to have personally seem them. He remembers him, standing in the sidelines as they tortured him, taking part in it, with a glint in his eye that mixed scientific fascination with too much personal enjoyment. It’s a fine line, and a dangerous game he’s playing, he could be wrong, and one well-placed word could throw all his progress away.

But there was a reason he was the only Winter Soldier to make it, to be kept in use as the others, more loyal, with no need to be brainwashed, were kept in ice and shelved.

They make it to an abandoned house; the windows are boarded up and he has to break them apart to get in. As they enter, he can practically see the man salivating, his fear is turning into excitement. And just as Bucky predicted, he rushes, he makes a stupid choice: He gets Bucky break the wall that hides the notebook.

The second the red cover is secured in his hand, he turns around and in one smooth motion pins the HYDRA underling against a wall with his metal arm.

“Is this the only copy?” He growls and the man is so startled he can’t answer, so Bucky presses closer. He can feel his bones shift under the pressure, just a little more and the man’s clavicles would snap. “ _Answer me. Is. This. The. Only. Copy_?”

“Yes.” The man swallows, the penny finally dropping about the mortal danger he’s under. “Those are Zola’s original notes, no one’s ever copied them, he wouldn’t let them and-“ He squeals and Bucky pushes just a bit harder.

“And. _What_?”

“And no one ever managed to crack the code they’re written in. So, HYDRA just locked them away, they never needed them anyways. The Asset, it-“ Bucky snarls in his face at that, rage curling its head from deep inside him at the name and the casual dehumanization. The man whimpers and the unmistakable smell of urine fills the air.

“ _I_ what?” He growls. His eyes, he knows, so usually flat grey in the last seventy years, are burning with cold fury, the seventh ring of hell is in his pupils.

“You, you were always so complacent after- after the wipes that they never needed them. In the end, they just buried it.”

“Good.” He takes a step back and with his metal hand grabs him by the shoulder, hauling him up the stairs with ease. He saw a closet upstairs that would do nicely for what he has planned.

He locks him up easily enough, he’ll send Natalia a text about him in a couple hours, knowing she’ll take her sweet time getting here. The piece of shit deserves a lot more than a couple hours of insolation, but his name is already in a couple of international wanted lists after the Project Insight dump. It won’t be the only thing he gets. He served his purpose for now, and Bucky’s not interested in revenge, no more fights, no more wars. He just needs calm, and for that, he needs to trust his own mind.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

He doesn’t bother with breaking into the Tower and leaving a note this time, instead, he texts Steve. It’s been some time since they last met at that park. Bucky refused to give Steve his number, a poor attempt to put some distance between them as long as he had the phantom of the winter soldier looming over his shoulder. Well, he got the notebook and drained it, there’s no avoiding it anymore.

_Same place. Same conditions. 2300._

He tries to picture how the encounter will go and his stomach curds.

 **He'll meet him in the park, be calm and collected**. Bucky will talk to with him, try to be gentle, but **he knows right from the start that he'll fall apart.**

**Cause he’s too expensive.**

Because he cracked the code, read the red notebook, cover to cover. Every single line, found every single hidden meaning and filled five more with his interpretations. And not a single one told him what he wanted to hear. He’ll explain it to him, in plain words.

He can’t trust his own mind.

HYDRA programed failsafes. Words that in certain order, language and tone can break him. Turn him back to _It_ , or just plain kill him.

There’s no way to get rid of them, they’ll always be there. And even if he thinks he got rid of the only copy of them, he’ll never be sure. If there’s one thing HYDRA was good at, was hiding things.

They can’t be together. Captain America can’t be seen with the Winter Soldier. They could never figure themselves out, so it seems destiny keeps making the choice for them.

And he knows Steve will beg, because he was never one to let things go easily. His **talk'll be somethin' that shouldn't be said out loud**. So, Bucky will stop him, do his damnest to make him understand, he’s not worth all that. He can’t bear to get false hopes again. 

And in the end, he’ll just disappear.

He still has time until the meeting so he lays back in his mattress. Thinks back to their life, so many things have happened to them and so many things have happened to the world. 

_The twenty-first century,_ he thinks with a sardonic chuckle, **_honestly, I thought that I would be dead by now_**. The thought is dark but it unleashes something in him, some hysteric energy born of all the things he has been pushing down.

He’s _alive_ in _the twenty first century_ , and so is _Stevie_. _What the actual fuck?_

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

He wakes up some time later after falling sleep without meaning to. Unsurprisingly, he had a nightmare.

This time it was one mostly mixed with memories of the earlier conditioning attempts. He reaches for his latest notebook and starts to spill the parts he remembers.

_I knew they were drugging my food, so for days I refused to eat it, even in the cold damp, dark cell where it was all I had I didn’t even touch it. They knew by then that I had the serum, so they calculated the doses and probably erred on the side of a little extra. It was laced so heavily that I could barely blink right after I ate it the first time. I think they found it funny, for them, drugged or starving was the same, all they needed was weak. I was holding on, for rescue. For Steve. I know it wasn’t rational, and I don’t resent him, he had no way of knowing I survived. I never told him about the experiments Zola did on me,-_

He pauses for a moment, fighting through the cold scalpel tracing his spine at the memory, the phantom fire of the knockoff serum in his veins. He practices some of his grounding technics, deep breaths, counting, in, out, catalog the things in the room, and once he feels stable enough and his hand stops shaking, he keeps going.

_I waited for him, in my drugged addled mind I kept wondering if maybe I had never left Azzano. There were days where a healthy, strong and tall Steve seemed laughable, something I could only come up with high off my ass. Maybe I had never left, and all I had now was this cold reality to keep me company, and the lingering absence of my arm._

_And then they brought the newspaper. Captain America missing in action. Sacrificed for his country, no family left behind but the American people._

_I broke._

_I screamed, I tore the paper to pieces and raged left and right until they couldn’t stand me anymore. I remember them **calling security, keepin' my head held down**. They took me to the Chair for the first time, and I think it worked because at that point, I would have done anything to forget_.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

He had a plan, a stance he wanted to take. He would insist on being left alone, let Steve be whatever he thought he wanted to be. But he should have known, Steve always found the way to completely derail him.

Steve arrives and Bucky can immediately tell he’s tired, exhausted, more like. The serum doesn’t let him get dark circles on his eyes, but Bucky learned early in the war to detect the telltale signs of his friend being drained, and that six sense has only gotten sharper with the Winter Soldier training.

So even from meters away and on the dim light, he can tell his friend is barely keeping it together, and all his arguments die in his throat.

“What happened?”

“What do you mean what happened?” 

“Steve…”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your shoulders are dropping, your nape is a mess, you muss it when you’re tired and-“ He can’t help a little smirk form on his lips, “You’re wearing mismatched socks, and I know you ain’t poor anymore or suddenly learned what a fashion statement is, so that’s clearly a mistake, so… what happened?”

Steve gapes at him for a full minute and Bucky just stares at him. There’s a hint of cockiness in his stance at still being able to read Steve like an open book, and it feels like a memory, but his eyes are serious. He won’t take an evasion for an answer.

“Figures you’d still be able to do that, fuck, you’re worse than Natasha.”

“Fuck yeah, I am, I helped train her.”

“Nothing, really. It has just been a couple of hard days, and nights. There’s been a lot of missions lately. We all took it hard and I’ve been…”

“Pushing yourself too hard and not caring for the consequences,” Bucky finishes for him.

“It’s not like that, I swear. It was just a bit grueling, there were several HYDRA bases clo-“

“HYDRA bases?” He interrupts him, tone icy cold. “Why the fuck are you still going after them? They’re done, broken down and scattered. Two people with a wooden sword could take them down, what the fuck do the Avengers have to do with them?” He tries to keep his tone even, but it’s impossible to hide the hot anger bubbling below it.

“Not the Avengers, me. Sam and Natasha were just having my back.”

“You wanted to go alone?” He snarls, voice just shy of shouting. 

“I can take care of myself” Steve replies, tone almost petulant. Bucky rolls his eyes at him.

“Will you ever stop being so damned stubborn? You ain’t got nothing to prove anymore. It’s not about whether you can or can’t take care of yourself.” Steve opens his mouth but he interrupts him again, he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “I get taking them down they’re evil nazi fuckers but this is about whether you even _should_ be fighting HYDRA’s cells in the first place. What the fuck, Stevie, _why_?”

“ _BECAUSE THEY HURT YOU!”_ Steve screams, finally letting go. All the tension drains out of him and the next thing he says is barely a whisper. “And I can’t let them be. Not when they hurt you like that.”

“So what?” Bucky counters him. He might be being cruel, he thinks, but Steve never took to being coddled, so he barrels on, “yes, they hurt me, they hurt a lot of people. But they’re done. HYDRA is dead _and I’m not_. That’s what I left to do, to get all I needed from them.” Steve sharply focuses on him at that. “I broke the Chairs and found all the information there was left of my conditioning. It can’t help me, but at least they won’t ever hurt anyone like they hurt me.

“That’s all I care about. I won’t go on a crusade after them _. I don’t want to, Steve_. It will only lead to more death. I moved on and so should you. I refuse to keep this up. And I won’t sit by and watch you crusade yourself to death. It’s either **bury the hatchet or bury a friend right now,** because we both now that’s the only way this can end. I made my choice, you make yours.”

They stare at each other for a few minutes, both unyielding, and for a second Bucky thinks he might have convinced him. That maybe Steve will listen and back off, focus on another thing, anything else. But then he takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders and Bucky feels like crying.

“I understand, Buck, I understand wanting to rest, you deserve it more than anyone, but I-“ He stops and starts again, “It’s not just HYDRA and you. They made me this, Buck. They gave me all this strength and the abilities to step up and make a change, I can’t just ignore that, **for the debt I owe-** “

“You **gotta sell your soul**?” Bucky interrupts him, voice cold.

“Buck, it’s not like that.”

“Bullshit, Steve. I’ve seen you ‘off duty’ and it’s _bull-shit_. No one really knows you; Sam is the only one who seems to get close to you, and still, he struggles with seeing Steve Rogers over _Captain America._ ” He spits out the name, almost like the first time he said it, asking for a cheer fresh out of Azzano. The moment he realized he had lost his best friend forever. “And you let them, let them take, take and take. Just like you used to do with the Commandos. You’re always taking care of everyone. Always the captain.” He says, unable to keep the bitterness out of his tone, it tastes old, seventy-years-old, he knows this is a conversation (argument) they have had before.

“Well, yeah, it’s in my name.” Steve says with a shrug, but Bucky can tell he’s getting defensive. Steve’s stubborn as a mule, but so is Bucky.

“Where the fuck does ‘captain’ fit into Steven Grant Rogers, huh?” He drawls. “I know I didn’t finish high school but even I know how to spell, and I don’t think it quite fits there.”

“Lives are at stake, Buck. **I can't say no. I can't say no** to helping, to saving lives!”

“Yes, you _can_! There will _always_ be a fight, Stevie, and I’m not saying never get involved, just consider stepping down. Let yourself be Steve Rogers. I hate seeing you like this, always hiding behind a righteous façade, inscrutable and idealistic. You always had your morals up your ass but you were- I don’t know, realer. You _can_ make mistakes, Steve, you can let yourself feel. I know what it’s like, to feel like you’re no longer human, and sometimes, sometimes I look at you and it terrifies me how close to that you look. It takes something off you, Stevie. That mantle is heavy, and you’ve been carrying it for a long time.”

“How do you know?” He can see a muscle in his jaw pulsing from fury. “ _How would you know?_ I only see you every couple of months, whenever the fuck you please to drop by with some cryptic message about a meeting and I never know what to expect.”

“Because I know you, Stevie. I might not remember everything, but I remember enough, enough to know you never learned to quit a day in your life. And how it was always me hitting you over the head and dragging you out of the latest mess you’ve gotten into. And…” He swallows hard, this is it, what he came to say. “And I just wanna know HYDRA is the one thing I don’t have to worry about getting to you when I’m not around anymore.”

Those words have almost a physical presence, and Bucky can pinpoint the exact second they hit Steve. 

“When you’re not around anymore? Bucky, what are you talking about? What do you mean ‘not around anymore’?” His pulse is picking up, and he takes a step forward. He raises his arms to grab his shoulders but hesitates at the last second, torn between the imperative of his desperation, their historically easy physicality and the boundaries born out of their new dynamics.

“I mean what it sounds like.” He can’t look at him in the eyes, so he looks down at his booted feet, his voice drops to a raspy whisper. “I looked for all the information HYDRA had on the program, there’s- there’s a lot that wasn’t on the data dump, old stuff, from the very beginning of the conditioning. From when they-“ His throat locks up and he has to clear it before he continues, still not looking at Steve. “From when they programmed me. They built failsafes. Secret passageways into the parts of my mind that still have that. Certain words in a certain order activate them. The orders can go from ‘kill everything in your path’ to ‘drop dead’. There’s no cure, I couldn’t find a way to get rid of them. Everything HYDRA put in my mind is still there.”

“Buck…” Steve sounds wrecked, there’s an underline of something that sounds like incoming tears on his voice, but Bucky can’t bring himself to look up, least he sees his friend’s crying and breaks too.

“I can’t be around people. I’m not safe. You saw how much damage I did as the Winter Soldier; I can’t let that happen again; I can’t trust my own mind.” He looks up at him then, needing to show Steve the naked truth on his eyes. “I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hurt you again, Steve. This is for the best.”

“Bucky, don’t please, we’ll find a way. You said it yourself, those notes are old, the world has changed a lot since then, we can try to find a way.” Ever the optimistic. “Tony-“

“No.” Bucky cuts him off. “You know what I did to Howard, you can’t ask _his son_ to help me.” He looks at Steve, his unyielding façade is crackling, but he just has to hold on for a bit more. “Don’t give me false hope, Steve, please. I can’t stick around. The Avengers, you,” he hates himself for saying this but he knows he must, it’s the truth. “It’s just a matter of time before I’m seen around you and someone figures out who I am. Captain America can’t be seen with the Winter Soldier.”

It’s cruel, throwing his words back at him when Steve doesn’t know he heard them on the first place, he can see it in the way he pales and his eyes start to shine. 

“You don’t know what it’s like, to know that one code can unmake you. To have the _memory_ of when someone said them and **then my limbs all froze and my eyes won't close, and I can't say no, I can't say no** _to anything_ ” He’s heaving again and the strain to keep the flashbacks is making him break in a sweat. 

“You’re right, I don´t know what that is like.” Steve closes the distance between them, taking him by his shoulders, and Bucky lets him. He was never good at saying no to Steve’s touch. “But I do know what it’s like to be alone, to wake up and realize there’s nothing in this planet that feels like home. When I woke up from the ice, I had nothing. Only Peggy was left from my time and most of the time she couldn’t even recognize me. You were right, before, the rest of the Avengers don’t really know me. _Me,_ Steve Rogers. But that’s because I didn’t let them. I closed myself off, wouldn’t let anyone in.

“And then you showed up. And my whole world turned right side up. We’ve barely seen each other this last year, but I’ve felt better than since I woke up from the ice, because I had a connection. Because I knew that you were somewhere out there, taking care of yourself and putting yourself back together. And I’m so damn proud of you, Buck, you have no idea. Please don’t throw this away, don’t close yourself off. I can tell you from experience that it only hurts you.

“All I’m asking is that you let me look. I won’t tell you anything unless I’m sure it could work, alright? Just let me look. Don’t leave me just yet.”

“Steve…”

“I’ll make you a deal, okay? I’ll-“ Steve is getting desperate, Bucky can tell, and it breaks his heart in a million pieces. “I’ll be more careful in the field, I’ll stop chasing after HYDRA leads, if you don’t leave. If you just stay around for a bit as I search for a solution.”

“Steve…”

“Bucky, _please_ , just a couple months.” Steve is begging, Bucky realizes, maybe for the first time in his life.

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” The hopeful tone in his voice is unmistakable, and contagious, Bucky can feel the tension draining out of his frame, his mouth curls up.

“Yeah, punk, I’ll stick around, make sure you don’t start another international crisis.”

“You know I only save the very best for you” He says with a strained tone and hauls him the rest of the way. He circles him with his arms and Bucky tucks his face on the crook of his neck. He can feel his soft skin on his lips when he answers.

“You’re such a punk.”

Steve hiccups wetly and holds him closer, there’s not an ounce of air between them and yet he wishes they could get closer.

“Yeah, I am, you jerk”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Even as the white, cold fog starts to creep over him and blur the visor Bucky doesn’t let himself hope. Shuri made a million promises, about how it will be fast, painless. It’s not that he doesn’t trust her, but he doesn’t want to be disappointed.

These last two months had been a particular kind of sweet torture. Constantly torn between leaving, giving up and retreating to some unknown, unmarked village in the middle of nowhere where no one could ever know who he was, and that constant, magnetic pull towards Steve.

Steve.

Who is right then looking at him through the glass, eyes hopeful but so scared underneath. Terrified, really. That makes two of them.

He kept his promise, though. He hasn’t sustained a single, unjustified injury in the line of duty in these two months. And Bucky has been checking.

He has also started to get closer to the rest of his team, Sam specially, but also Natalia, and even Tony, who Bucky has been careful to keep his distance from. His therapist has insisted he plan an apology, not because he thinks Howard and Maria’s deaths were his fault, he knows he was stripped of his agency and couldn’t refuse, but because he _feels_ like he should. And he will, as soon as he can get this over with, success or failure.

Learning that the mind doesn’t work in logical steps and reasonings has been a big part of his recovery. He still has years to go, but if this works, and if Shuri finds a way to get rid of the conditioning, he will worship the ground she walks in. Just for offering to help, he’s ready to owe her a lifelong-debt. 

Bucky knows whatever is left after the procedure won’t be pretty, but it will be _his_. _His_ mind, no matter how fucked up and complicated its inner workings.

It feels like falling sleep, and like waking up, in ways the HYDRA cryochamber never did. It’s gentle, soft, the warmth of the atmosphere slithers into the compartment and caresses his skin. He blinks against the light, and as he focuses, the blurry shapes around him start to take form. There’s Shuri, her two buns impeccably braided and a huge smile on her face.

“Good morning, Sargent Barnes.” She says, and there’s laughter in her tone, like always. It really amazes him how she’s so clearly a genius, leagues beyond most weathered scholars, and still such a kid in so many ways. She reminds him a bit of Becca, smart, carefree and just as a trouble maker.

He gasps at the memory. _Becca_. His sister, he remembers her, plain as day.

“Is everything alright?” Shuri takes a step closer, immediately calling forward a hologram showing his vital signs. “Do you hurt anywhere?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I just, I remembered my little sister.” He says, voice dropping to a whisper. He looks up at her, and feels his eyes fill with tears. “Thank you, princess. You- I- I’ll never be able to repay you. Whatever you need, you can always count on me.”

She smiles wider at him.

“Don’t worry, Sargent Barnes, it was my pleasure.”

“Bucky, please, my name is Bucky.” He says and she nods, accepting it. She opens her mouth to answer but a sweeping sound behind her interrupts her. They both look over to see the door open and Steve appear.

He’s tired, Bucky can immediately tell, he probably hasn’t slept the whole week Bucky was under. The procedure itself wasn’t long, but they had to give his mind time to readjust, and the medics had all agreed that was best done with the least number of stimuli possible.

The moment Steve’s eyes fall on him he lights up. It’s like the exhaustion, the worry, the pain and the waiting all disappear in the blink of an eye. He takes a step into the room, almost unconsciously before his gaze flickers to Shuri, silently asking if that’s okay. She nods and his gaze turns back to Bucky.

“Hey, Stevie.” Bucky’s voice is back to a whisper, but it’s all he can manage. His throat is closing up at the sight of Steve, broad and golden and _alive_. The memories come in crashing waves but don’t bring any pain with them this time.

“Did it work?” He walks over to him, tentative, and as an answer Bucky blurts the first thing he can recall.

“Your mother’s name was Sarah. You used to… wear newspaper on your shoes.” He says with a chuckle.

They both reach for the other simultaneously, strong arms tensed as they wrap around each other. They hide their faces on their necks, but it does nothing to muffle their relieved sobs. 

Bucky is the first to pull back, slowly, as not to drop the physical connection between them, just enough to be able to look at Steve in the eyes when he whispers the other memory that had surfaced at the first sight of him.

“I’ve been in love with you since I was seventeen years old.”

Steve cradles his face with his big hands, his eyes are on Bucky’s, questioning, shinning and still oh so, so, wary. Slowly, deliberately Bucky sneaks his tongue out and wets his lips, Steve’s eyes follow the movement and he swallows hard.

He leans in, so ever so slowly, giving Bucky plenty of time to pull back or change his mind. But he doesn’t, instead, he leans in. He closes the distance between them and lays his lips on Steve’s being oh

So

So

**Careful.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated <3


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